Errors or modifications (herein referred to collectively as an “error”) may be introduced into a transport stream during transmission. Such errors could result in rendering a data file that does not accurately represent the intended result. When such errors occur in a military, surveillance, or entertainment setting, the effect may significantly diminish the value of the data file.
As a result, error detection tools, such as checksums, are commonly used to verify the integrity of a data file. Integrity verification refers to the process of confirming whether one or more errors have been introduced into a data file during transmission. Conventional data integrity verification processes rely on checksums to verify the integrity of an entire data file and determine if an error is present within the entire data file. For example, when verifying the integrity of a plurality of packets representing a picture file, a receiving node must wait until each of the plurality of packets has arrived. This method of integrity verification is ineffective for a streaming data file wherein a portion of the data file is rendered before all packets related to the data file have arrived at a receiving node.
Addressing this issue has been problematic because any modification to a streaming data file to facilitate integrity verification must be backwards compatible to ensure that new network nodes, as well as legacy network nodes, can handle any such modification without causing malfunctions within legacy nodes.
Furthermore, increasing the bandwidth of a transport stream is always a concern when implementing an error detection process. Conventional methods of performing error detection often add additional bytes to a transport stream, wherein the bytes are used solely for error detection or correction. The addition of such bytes increases the bandwidth of the transport stream and reduces the efficiency of the transport stream. For example, a typical forward error correction algorithm may increase the bandwidth of a transport stream by 10-40%. In instances where bandwidth is limited, the additional bandwidth could have a significant effect on the transmission of a transport stream.
As a result, there is a need in the art for a method, system, and computer-readable medium for facilitating integrity verification of a transport stream comprising a streaming data file that can be received by both new and legacy network nodes, while at the same time not increasing the bandwidth of the transport stream.